A daily memoir of sorts, in which I capture the mundanity of everyday life and breathe art into the words! And I write about my lamb, Karen, too! She really does the funniest, cutest things.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Happy 4th of July.

Hey! My head finally stopped hurting! YAY! And just in time for the 4th of July. Oh… how are you? Fine, I hope. Anywhoop, I won't be writing tomorrow, because I'm taking Grandma Christ to the rodeo. It's something we like to do every year. We watch the parade (which is good, except there are always too many tractors. What is it with country folk, anyway?), and we go to the fair (where we eat elephant ears, and tamales, and ride the bumper cars), and then we go watch the cowboys rope cows. Yeeeee-HAW! It's always fun, and a good excuse to wear my cowboy hat, my big belt buckle and my bolo tie with the dead scorpion in the middle.THEN, tomorrow night I'm going to sedate Karen (that's my lamb) and shoot off fireworks with Trudy (she's a bank teller). Ordinarily, I don't approve of sedating animals—however, Karen is a psychological wreck on July 4th because all the loud fireworks wig her out. Two years ago, I came home from a night of fireworks, and Karen was hiding in the stove. NOT GOOD. This way, she'll sleep through the entire thing.Anyway, as it turns out I am quite an expert at recreational fireworks, thanks to my friends at the Indian Reservation who have taken time to train me about the best lowgrade explosives. Here are my top five picks:1) RAIN OF FIRE: This multiple repeater shoots one hundred incredibly loud balls of fire into the air, and then they explode, raining molten debri down upon the entire neighborhood. Might want to move the kids inside for this one.2) BLACK CAT MAGNUM VELOCITY MISSILE: Light this one, and for the love of Dad, GET AWAY. With a loud kaboom, flames burn everything in a thirty yard radius as this missile catapults into the air, and turns the entire sky white with its explosion. (It's not nuclear or anything… I think.)3) BULLET BOMB MORTAR: Picture a six-foot tall tube loaded up with 40 explosive shells the size of grapefruits. Seriously, if you light this one off, that's all you really need. It'll still be exploding in three days.4) WAKE THE NEIGHBORS: This is what's known as a "Super Cake" and creates a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors in the sky. The downside is anyone not wearing earplugs within a one-mile radius will most certainly suffer permanent hearing damage. AWESOME!5) SHOCK AND AWE: These beauties really live up to their name. Do you happen to have an asbestos suit? I like to wear one for this particular firework, because they have a "trick quick burning fuse" that causes a teriffic explosion within 1.2 seconds of lighting. (Sometimes sooner.) That's the "shock" part. Then, roughly 200 white-hot scrambling missiles fly no higher than five feet off the ground attacking anything that moves like a swarm of burning bumble bees. But that's not the "awe" part. The "awe" part comes after the stinging missiles explode, shoot shards of glass into your eyes, burns your clothes off, and emits a concussive BOOM that can fairly easily collapse a small structure, or shatter the windows out of an entire apartment building. So pretty, though.

Anyway, those are my favorites. But! If you're going to be around anyone shooting off fireworks, be sure to be careful. Some people aren't as conscientious with explosives as I am.Happy 4th of July, everybody!

Jesus,I'm glad you feel better. However, I don't think you should light your fireworks. Like j2 said, they are illegal in Oregon and probably in Washington too. Besides, I saw a girl blow her finger off with an M-80 when she didn't throw it fast enough.Also. I think they are the work of the devil and he is trying to tempt you to stray from the path of the Righteous!Try to think of something innocuous, like rowing a kayak down the Willamette and maybe listening to the blues playing at the Blues Festival. Or, taking Karen to the coast so she can gambol on the sand.You could also pay to watch the fireworks in Vancouver...that would be safer!Hey, I'm just trying to watch out for you and Karen since your Dad doesn't seem to care!Have a happy 4th!

Well, fireworks ain't quite illegal here, (in Washington), but they're not quite legal either. I only had some sparklers and tried to get on the bus, but they wouldn't let me... sparklers which are equivalent to some matches.

thank you for remembering my birthdayHonestly it really is my birthday on July 4th I know quite a few people who share your birthday and few who's birthdays are July 4th inc mine of course

You make sure Karen the lamb is safe away from all the fireworks, glad you are feeling better but don't over do it ok you don't want to make yourself sick watching fireworks you make you you stay warm ok.

Whoops sorry forgot July is summer over there, no fireworks here unless its winter then only if the fireworks are controlled by experts with licenses, you can't just go into a shop and buy fireworks in Australia they have been banned from public use for years ... to dangerous. You can watch the displays here just you can't set them off yourself unless you want a BIG fine

Hey Jeebers,Yeah, I don't dig the fireworks either. I think I get too much into the intent of the Holiday and get all cranky when people blow it all out of whack. I could mention x-mas (do you mind x-mas?) but really, the 4th is the one that does it for me.I just can't imagine our founding fathers sitting down and saying, HEY, you know what would be cool? Lets let a bunch of drunk f'ers (pmf) spend a weeks pay and blow the shit(pmf) out of stuff and disturb the dogs and leave a mess outside and keep hard working joes like myself from sleeping because they don't have the day off the next day...It would be so much cooler if we all just got together and dropped some acid and listened to some jam bands all night and talked about how we can almost see your dad... and how that tree, man, that tree is supposed to be there dude, and you know why??? so I can be staring at it now and grooving on it... Yeah, I love that tree man...Deep down inside though, I really feel like blowing some shit up... the kind of blowing shit up that makes you almost crap your pants just thinking about it, the kind of blow shit up where you light the fuse and you jump around like a little girl cause you just tagged someone and they are it...Oh, I am so confused...pardon all my offensive french style words through out...

p.s. check out My Friendship blog if you wanna get on the TLC tip... I miss left eye... We are always accepting new friends... think about it...Bless my cock!!!

You certainly do love fireworks, don't ya? The one's you've listed sound awesome! I saw a video once where some (drunk) boys shot bottlerockets off out of their a-holes(PMF). Did you ever try that one? Sure looked like fun...till it didn't actually shoot out. Boom! I think I laughed so hard I cracked a wing. Oh, good times.

You know, when I was a little archangel, I had a stuffed monkey and I put him in the oven (like Karen (your lamb)) one night to stay warm. Next morning when my mother angel fired up the oven to make biscuits...well there were fireworks then too. Not pretty. Maybe you should padlock your oven just to be safe. We don't want Karen (again your lamb) going up in flames like poor Mr. Nanners (my stuffed monkey).

Enjoy the rodeo! what is it with you and cowboys...and shirtless high school players...and apostles? (oops, didn't mean to bring them up!)

Ok, I did not get any confirmation from you. I guess that means you're not going to my bbq this July 4 with the apostles, Abraham and his seven children and other biblical figures. Anyway, I hope you have a good one. Good to hear you are feeling better now. Say hi to Jeremy.

Hello, ichthyophile! We can't pump our own gas or have cool fireworks, but we DO have medical marijuana and death with dignity... Of course, neither of those is recreational. Hmm...we do have Oaks Park in Portland! Cheers!